


Victors Never Stumble

by Trovia



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Celebrities, F/M, Fangirls, Forced Prostitution, Forced Relationship, Gen, M/M, Teen Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 08:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trovia/pseuds/Trovia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirteen-year-old Effie Trinket is ready to fight for that autograph like a Career.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Victors Never Stumble

**Author's Note:**

  * For [millari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/millari/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Lies Are Fair in Love and War](https://archiveofourown.org/works/723758) by [millari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/millari/pseuds/millari). 



> This story is inspired by events depicted in "Lies Are Fair in Love And War" by millari, a story which you should all read because it is awesome. However, I tried to make sure that you can read this one as a stand-alone. 
> 
> Thank you very much, sabaceanbabe, for the beta!
> 
> **Warning:** I suppose in this fic that Haymitch lied when he told Kat he was never forced to prostitute himself.

“Mr. Abernathy! Mr. Abernathy! Haymitch!”

Cautiously balancing on her tiptoes, Effie Trinket stretches a little further to stick out from the people crowding all around her at the barrier. That unpleasant tall boy on her left bumps into her, and she grinds her teeth, giving him a vicious look before positioning her big smile back on her face. Nobody will ever notice you if you do not exude an air of joy and happiness, after all. Effie might be tiny, short for a young lady of thirteen, but she is determined to stand her ground. _No fear, no pain, no hesitation,_ she grimly remembers the motto of the District Two Careers. She’ll just have to stick out with her smile. Like District _One._

Alabaster Greenweed and Jocelyn Coddle – this year’s winners of the Laurel Wreath Awards – are walking by her on the red carpet now, so close she could touch them if she reached out to them. Most of the crowd are doing just that, their squeals and autograph requests a cacophony in her sensitive ears, but Effie is barely noticing them now. Her eyes are on the couple approaching the Capitol Amphitheater behind the two moviemakers, and she stretches that extra bit, the photograph that she brought clutched in her hand. 

Lincoln Benford is looking stunning tonight, expansive golden wig framing his tattooed face and Effie, the most dedicated reader of _Style With A Smile_ , can already see that the fashion magazine will be _all over_ his exquisite orchid purple toga coat tomorrow. She goes a little weak in her knees just from _seeing_ him, in person. Then, however, her heart skips a beat because there… _oh_ … there Haymitch is on the actor’s arm, dressed in a provocatively plain blue tailcoat. 

“Haymitch!” Effie shouts, on her tiptoes still, maniacally waving the photograph. “Mr. Abernathy!”

Lincoln is making a motion as if to detour to his fans, _right where she is standing_ , reaching for what _must_ be his famous golden autograph pen in his pocket. It’s as if Effie’s heart is about to explode in her chest. 

Then Haymitch loses his footing, suddenly, swaying ominously, and Lincoln’s attention snaps onto the other man like a string come loose, concern evident on his beautiful face; he fastens his grip on Haymitch’s arm. Ignoring the flash of cameras, they pause right there, leaning in to exchange words that are almost drowned out by the crowd – so close to her that Effie swears she can _taste_ a whiff of Haymitch’s eau de cologne, sharply alcoholic. Eyes glued on the victor she has spent all _summer_ daydreaming about when he appeared at the side of Panem’s biggest star, she can see how Haymitch’s face tightens for a second.

“This isn’t what I…” she thinks she can hear Lincoln’s say, sharply; Haymitch mutters a reply – an apology maybe, and did he just almost call Lincoln _Mr. Benford_ before he stopped himself?! – looking anywhere but at Lincoln, jaw clenched. 

_He’s a victor, after all,_ Effie thinks logically, _of course he would feel embarrassed about stumbling at the side of his sweetheart._ He must be defaulting to district mannerisms, respecting his lover from the Capitol so much.

Lincoln is shaking his head in an endearing way and - _no_ \- they are past. The last thing she sees is a fleeting expression of distaste on Haymitch’s face as he scans the crowd with his trademark arrogance. His pupils seem strangely shot, as if he isn’t even quite there.

Effie crumbles into herself, the hand with the photograph she’d been so sure they would sign once they glimpsed the bright smile on her joyful face slowly sinking down. Another celebrity couple is approaching; the other children are starting to cheer and shout names again. It would be the _only time_ she would be allowed to attend a movie premiere this season, her father said, and Effie’s father is never swayed by her smile. It was her only chance. 

* * *

“Oh come _on_ ,” her best friend Camilla is saying when they hurry down the street an hour later, anxious to catch a cab for Camilla who absolutely _must_ be home by ten. “A victor notices _everything_. How else could they survive the Games? He saw you and he ignored you because he’s a _dick._ ”

On any other day, Effie’s head would have snapped around to stare at her friend upon hearing that word, in a mixture of admiration and shock. Today, she is too preoccupied with the events – well, event – of the evening.

“He did _not_ ,” she says, pressing her lips together to hide her disappointment. “And he isn’t. I told you he had just stumbled right at that moment and…”

“ _Victors_ don’t _stumble_.” Camilla is all exasperation. “And even if they did, if they would get distracted by _stumbling_ , they’d _die._ ” 

Effie’s shoulders slump down, until she remembers her posture and how important it is – another precious lesson by her etiquette teacher. _Be a lady,_ she reminds herself, trying to find a rhythm on her high heels despite the fact that they are walking this fast. And more determined, _Be a Career._ A Career wouldn’t give up. _Haymitch_ didn’t give up although he _wasn’t_ a Career and although his _guts_ had been spilling out of his belly; Effie has rewatched it dozens of times, sickened and giddy and all the more awed for it. 

“It was my only chance,” she says again miserably. “He doesn’t even know I exist.”

“He’s a dick,” Camilla repeats the word as if she is drawing pleasure out of using it, and Effie gives her a haughty look. 

“That kind of language isn’t going to get you anywhere,” she says, thinking Camilla isn’t behaving like a proper best friend tonight at _all_. 

* * *

Effie gets home to the sound of her parents arguing in the drawing room in hushed voices about whether or not her etiquette lessons are indeed as important as her mother is making them out to be. “What would a smart and pretty young lady ever need this for, hm?” her father is saying and her mother is replying, haughtily, “You have never understood these things, Orion, and you never will.” Nobody cares that _Effie_ wants the lessons so that she can go and be _alive_ , like Lincoln, Haymitch and the other people tonight, but her parents don’t listen to her, ever.

Lying down on her bed, she stares at the life-sized poster of Haymitch mounted on her wall. It’s a collectors’ item, an original victors’ poster from his Quell. The shot was taken – she knows it exactly – from noon of the third day in the arena, his eyes narrowed as he looks towards a sound off frame, his hand already clutching his knife. 

With a sigh, Effie reaches for the photograph she wanted to get signed, unfolding and carefully flattening it on the top of her sheet. _With love, Haymitch Abernathy,_ she thinks wistfully, tracing the invisible words with her finger. Or _With love, Haymitch and Lincoln,_ she wouldn’t have minded that, either.

Effie knows Haymitch is twenty-eight now and surely not caring much about what he did as a boy, but the picture is another one from his Games – him and Maysilee Donner sharing a blanket at a campfire, cuddling for warmth. Certainly he will never forget Maysilee Donner. Maysilee had just told him a joke – the cheeky one with the goat and the miners, Effie knows – and he is laughing with her in the picture, his face breaking all open in a way that captivates Effie. She’s never seen him smile like that on television even _once._

“I want to be your Maysilee,” she whispers at him, the secret she hasn’t told anybody, not even Camilla. “I wish I could, I want it so much. But I know I can’t. I suppose you don’t need a Maysilee anyway, not now. I’m glad you’re happy with Lincoln instead.”

Very secretly, Effie might have been fantasizing that Haymitch would catch a glimpse of her beautiful smile today in the crowd and it would have reminded him of his Maysilee so that he would have paused – talked to her, returned her smile the way he only ever has for that girl. She was born the year Haymitch won – what if she was Maysilee reborn? There are romance stories like that.

Effie knows it’s stupid, just a stupid fantasy; she shouldn’t have expected anything out of tonight, when Haymitch and Lincoln had come to see a movie premiere, not to sign pictures. She’s just been a stupid little child about tonight. Of course, Haymitch and Lincoln were too caught up in each other to notice anybody, never mind her. What were the odds, after all?

Then again, the odds do tend to be in Haymitch Abernathy’s favor. 

Effie sighs, stretching out on her bed and kicking off her shoes. Turning her head to the side, she gives the grumpy and dangerous young victor on her wall a smile that is real, not practiced, since nobody is here to see. This one just feels good. 

The Games teach you that there is always hope against hope. 

Like Haymitch, like the Careers, she’ll never forget _that._


End file.
